Tuesday, 23 June 2015

Imperfect but Awesome

I watched a video the other day that made a big impact on me. I even shared it to my Facebook wall, because I thought that it might impact someone else too. Since then, it's been on my mind constantly and I realised I want to blog about it. If it can help anyone else in any way, I want it to.

It's a video by one of the nicest YouTube beauty guru's, Bubz. I've been following her for years now and I find myself drawn to her videos because she's so sweet and positive. The video is about our imperfections and accepting them. But before I prattle on more, here it is.

I think the biggest reason that this message hit home for me so hard, is because I'm personally struggling with the scars pregnancy left on me. My stomach is riddled with stretch marks now and the skin is pretty loose too. This is in spite of a variety of efforts from my side to lighten the marks and firm the skin.

I get it, you know. My body did something wonderful, a miracle. A human grew inside me and once she was out in the world, my body was able to feed her. How is that even possible? It still confounds me to think I felt her move while she was safely in my tummy. When I look at my daughter, I really don't care about my body. For her, I would have given my arm, my liver and my life. I still would, even more so after spending time with her. I love that little girl and I would do it all again to have her.

At the same time, the saggy tummy and stretch marks make me insecure. I don't really have reason to be insecure, but I am, and I can admit to that. I don't fully understand why it bothers me so much. And yet, I do.

As women, we're bombarded constantly with images of the 'perfect' woman. It's as Bubz says in the video, they want us to buy their diverse products to improve us, so they constantly brainwash us to believe we're not good enough. Meanwhile, it breaks us down. Most women, most PEOPLE, out there have a distorted body image. It sucks.

I'm not saying a single video changed my mind about my body. But I'm going to try and accept it anyway. When I'm ready, I might even share a picture or two with you here. I'm not as brave as Bubz. Yet.

I hope that you can start to accept the imperfectly perfect you too. All of us are beautiful in our own way and I think it's time to spread THAT message. So that when the big companies come with their products to improve us, we have the confidence to accept we're (im)perfect already.